PANDORA MAY SHUT DOWN

PandoraIf you haven’t seen the recent news on Pandora, the rise in performance royalties for internet radio (coupled with their fast-growing listener base, especially on the iPhone) is swallowing up all their revenue and they may have to shut down. Read about it here.

I really hope they can avert a shutdown by finally inserting audio ads between songs. There’s been discussion of PBS-style Read more »

2008 OLYMPICS — OPENING CEREMONY MUSIC

fireworks

Most of the opening event ceremony was in the style of “Western Art Music” (i.e. “classical” ish ) — including the Chinese National Anthem itself. Instead of choosing to celebrate traditional music, the Chinese largely deferred to the West. Read more »

VINYL RECORDS — HOW TO CRATE DIG (PT 6)

lyn-collins.jpg Crate digging refers to finding music by literally digging through crates of vinyl. For me, crate digging is what vinyl is all about – by rediscovering old music, you are reconnecting with history. To be a good crate digger, you have to be a musical detective Read more »

LISTEN UP. BUY EARPLUGS.

er20sAllow me to lecture you for a minute. Yes, I’m talking to you. You go to some loud concerts, you’re in a band, or you go to clubs. The music is crazy loud and yet you never use any sort of hearing protection. Read more »

PANDORA: F-ING INCREDIBLE

PandoraThis post is long overdue. Have you used Pandora yet? If not, your life is about to get a whole lot better. I discovered Pandora a while back and then for some reason stopped using it. But I moved into a new apartment recently and didn’t have my music hard drive set up yet; PANDORA TO THE RESCUE!

Pandora is the face of the Music Genome Project. They approach music the way scientists approach DNA Read more »

VINYL RECORDS - FORMATS (PT 5)

ayersToday we’re going to take a look at some standard vinyl formats, as well as some less common variations.

33 1/3 RPM– LPs (Long Play) — 33s – (usually) 12 inch

This format was released by Columbia in 1948. It changed recorded music forever Read more »

VINYL RECORDS - WHERE TO FIND MUSIC (PT 4)

vinylstoreIn this article we’ll explore some different place to buy vinyl.

1. Thrift stores
Supposedly, people find good and even rare records at thrift stores. They must be going to different stores than me Read more »

THE BLUES: MORE DIVERSE THAN YOU THINK

So I’m playing a blues gig in August. In prepping for the gig, I’ve been listening to and thinking about the blues a lot. Looking through the setlist I’ve been compiling over the last few days, I noticed how diverse the blues can be.

The most frequent knock on the blues is that “It’s all the same.” Read more »

REUTERS: THE SHAMELESS ART OF HEADLINE - GRABBING

reuters.bmpReuters has published a horrible story arguing that digital music (e.g., mp3s) is actually more wasteful than physical music (e.g., CDs). Click here for the article.

Maybe their conclusion is fair, maybe it’s not. It’s impossible to tell because the article itself draws it’s conclusions from such a selective set of facts. A scientific researcher presented this article would quickly ask at least the following “first-blush” questions: Read more »

VINYL RECORDS – NEEDLES, SLIPMATS, AND MORE (PT 3)

cartridge
So you’ve got a record player. It didn’t come with a needle, did it? Hope you saved a little money because having a decent cartridge may be even more important than having a good record player. Read more »